Days after a series of explosions that appeared to target Christians and foreigners at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka and left more than 300 people dead, the Washington Post reported some details of who was behind the attacks and their motives.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks Tuesday, while Sri Lankan authorities said Islamist extremists had carried out the attacks in retaliation for attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15, that left 50 Muslims dead.

“Investigations have revealed that the attacks were carried out by Islamic extremists in retaliation to the mosque attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand,” State Minister of Defense Ruwan Wijewardene told parliament. On March 15, a white supremacist killed 50 Muslims in two mosques.

Wijewardene did not offer any evidence for the connection and also acknowledged there were security lapses that allowed the attacks to occur, which he ascribed to rivalries between the president and the prime minister.

Sri Lanka’s Minister of Defense could be referring to reports that Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena did not warn Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe about the attacks in spite of receiving warnings in advance of them. This rivalry between the nation’s two leaders dates back at least to the last election, which Wickremesinghe won before being unexpectedly fired Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and accused of being inflexible and corrupt. Sirisena attempted to replace Wickremesinghe with Mahinda Rajapaksa, a former president of Sri Lanka, before reinstating Wickremesinghe about seven weeks later.

Originally published last November, amid Sri Lanka’s constitutional crisis, this political cartoon from Germany featured in today’s gallery now seems prophetic:

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